No Calls for Knife Control?

On 21 January a man armed with a 8 inch knife managed to perpetrate a horrific attack. Twelve people were wounded in the attack, of which three who were in serious condition, four in moderate condition and five who sustained light injuries. Another seven people were treated for shock.

The terrorist says he learned how to conduct these types of attacks from the internet. It seems there are helpful manuals online in video form. Videos translated by Palestinian Media watch found

video focusing on Hamas founder Ahmad Yassin and portrays young children as continuing the slain Islamist sheikh’s legacy. Children are portrayed wearing uniforms, holding rifles and participating in military training. The children are shown marching and carrying out mock attacks on their “enemies,” and are exhorted to “carry the knife” and “carry machine guns” to attack Israel.Other videos show the specific techniques needed to slash someone’s throat or stab them in the side, what spot to aim for in order to kill someone, etc.

Oh, goody. Reminds me of what Golda Mier said

Peace will come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.

“I had no choice, I had to save the passengers,” Biton stated, from his hospital bed in Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital. “He stabbed me while driving and went to the middle of the bus and began to stab passengers.””Then he began to rock the bus from side to side, so that people standing on the street will notice that there is a problem,” Biton added.Biton said that he purposely directed Matrouk toward him so that he could enable passengers to escape while they could. “I had no choice but to bring him to me,” Biton stated. “I hit the brakes so that he flew like a bird [up front] to my seat.””I jumped out of my chair, grabbed his left hand, and started to spray him with tear gas,” he continued. “I gave him a punch and he punched me back. Because I was losing a lot of blood, there was a pool of [my] blood next to me and I slipped in it.” Meanwhile, passengers had wrenched open the bus doors and fled – but it was not enough to stop Matrouk, who left the bus and began walking toward Yitzhak Sadeh street in the heart of the city. But despite his injuries, Biton “left the bus and started chasing him,”

“When I realized I was on the scene of a terror attack, I tried to neutralize him (the Arab terrorist) due to the fact that I was armed.””I saw people running. I asked ‘who is the terrorist?,’ because I had trouble identifying him,” said the man. “And then I saw a youth, dressed in jeans and holding in his hand a knife with a 20 centimeter (nearly 8 inches) blade, trying to stab passersby around him.”Despite being armed and faced with an attacking terrorist, the man was unable to act due to the surrounding passersby.”I tried to shoot him but had trouble doing so because there were passersby around him and I feared harming innocents. I shot in the air, I tried to warn the passersby, and shouted ‘terrorist,’ but it didn’t help,” he said.”In front of my eyes he stabbed an elderly man who was there. Afterwards he continued on to a young girl who was in shock. I shot in the air again trying to snap her out of it – but I didn’t succeed. In front of my eyes he raised the knife and stabbed her until she collapsed,” related the man.

The terrorist continued his stabbing spree as he headed up the street, you can see people running to get away from him.

So far methods used to try to thwart the attacker have been tear gas, armed security but they couldn’t shoot the terrorist due to by-standers. He did fire in the air, and try to warn passersby. We also saw people running away to try to escape being attacked. Security cameras, like the ones countries like Britain and the U.S. tell us are such a great crime deterrent. None of it worked.

So, what did finally stop him?

According to police, a team from the Israel Prisons Service’s elite Nachshon unit happened to be driving behind the bus when the attack took place. The officers got off the car and gave chase to the terrorist, shot him in the leg and arrested him.

“If two armed and trained citizens had been on the bus yesterday in Tel Aviv, the terror attack would have ended in a completely different way – or it wouldn’t have happened at all,”
“So if weapons-bearing citizens help to secure the public domain, shouldn’t the State encourage responsible citizens to practice shooting and carry weapons? Why does it do just the opposite?
The answer is that the State of Israel is not increasing our liberties; it is reducing them. Dictatorship confiscate citizens’ weapons. ‘The State alone will take care of all your security needs’.In the past, there were 300,000 citizens licensed to bear weapons in Israel. That number has now been cut in half. As a member of the Knesset Interior Committee, I was able to stop the trend. But we have to understand: Without liberty, we will not enjoy security,”

WOW, he’s a politician, and he gets it. The same principles apply the world over. But the response of the elected Representatives will determine the direction the country goes. Will there continue to be attacks by terrorists that fear little chance of citizens stopping them, or will they begin to fear attacking a “Sheepdog” nation, knowing their chance of success small and if they fail they will be buried in Uncle Buck’s pig farm?

We must become resolved that we will not tolerate Politicians who do not represent us and hold their feet to the fire. We must demand that groups that are paid membership dues represent us, or we find another group to belong to. The situation has become so serious we can’t afford to be anything less than fully resolved to fight this battle.

10 thoughts on “No Calls for Knife Control?”

All this has prompted one of my favorites, MK Moshe Feiglin to call for citizens to be allowed to carry weapons.
Funny how I tried to make this point a few days ago and you belittled my comments. Shame on you.

Y.B.,
You, and Sybil have totally misinterpreted my comments. As a Jew who lost family in the Holocaust, I am highly offended. I am a big believer in a strong, armed defense – especially when I look at the history of Jews and the ongoing refusal of too many of today’s Jews to arm themselves. Of all places in the world, Israelis should be armed to the teeth. I remain astonished that the Israeli government has such stringent gun laws that keep their citizens helpless. I tried to make this point earlier, yet you and Sybil chose to denigrate my remarks. Perhaps you are the one is is highly sensitive?

It seems I have. For that I am quite sorry. Your personal history is a very important piece of the puzzle. As to the modern State of Israel, it has been often and fairly described as schizophrenic, and that it is. Founded largely by Anglophilic, secular, socialists, in the wake of the Holocaust, those in the minority (the religious and the Revisionists) were sufficiently weak politically that the State has suffered from a European secular socialist mindset in most of its institutions for most of its history. Worse, the security apparatus (especially the Police) is mostly a holdover from the British Mandatory institutions, with all of the orientations of the English Police and domestic institutions from the early 1900’s. The good news is that all these institutions are dying out rapidly with the generations who brought them there. The opportunity exists for dramatic improvement on all fronts. In sum, while the United States is sliding full velocity down the hole of a socialist welfare state the State of Israel is, (however excruciatingly slowly) emerging from that dead-end. Self defense is a supremely important component of this, and I hold out high hopes, if for no other reason that the Muslim Arab population is so wedded to mindless levels of provocative violence. It seems you and I (and likely Sybil) have been talking past each other, and are far more in agreement than you may think. With that, I extend my hand in friendship.

“It seems you and I (and likely Sybil) have been talking past each other, and are far more in agreement than you may think.”
So it would seem as I find myself quite in agreement with your latest comment.

“With that, I extend my hand in friendship.”
I am pleased to accept and likewise return the honor. 🙂

Sam, I would offer to drop a curtsey but I can’t seem to do one without getting my spurs tangled up in my skirt, so I hope instead perhaps you might accept my hand offered in friendship as well.

After I read Y.B.’s comments about the state of Israeli attitudes , where they came from, how things are changing and in what ways I could have believed he was present at a conversation I had about 2 1/2 years ago. He wasn’t. But the conversation was with an Israeli who said very much the same things, and expressed similar frustrations. And more.

A part of my frustration is with the American decision to leave our service people at risk on their own bases. Where the Israeli government allows their IDF members to carry their wepons on buses and at all times, here our service people aren’t allowed to be armed on base leaving them vulnerable to the likes of the Ft. Hood scum (I won’t use his name). Carry a wepon on a bus in America? HA! Yet it’s done daily in Israel with no problem without the service people going “nuts”, right?

What I find hope in is ideas put forth by people like MK Moshe Feiglin, the young men joining the Betar in France. I loved the line in the interview when he said no longer would Jews go around with their heads down. YES! And that’s France! I find hope in people like you that call on others to pick up the banner of self-defense and carry it. Do something with it. When there are enough, informed people I have hope attitudes and thoughts will change.

My dream? To see the Jewish Community Centers start offering shooting classes. You have to have hopes and dreams to have hopes and dreams fulfilled.

“A part of my frustration is with the American decision to leave our service people at risk on their own bases.”
Absolutely agree. But, until all the naysayers are gored by the proverbial ox, the powers that be will continue to avoid common sense. Even the realization that serious danger exists is not enough for way too many Jews. An example of this type of irrational thinking is shown in the following article: http://5tjt.com/jews-and-guns/

The author finds the idea of civilians (gasp!) – even well trained ones – carrying weapons and engaging in shootouts with terrorists abhorrent. Yet, at the same time, he freely admits that “well trained” police officers shoot quite poorly under the stress of a live fire situation. Nevertheless, he thinks we should all wait “until our heroic first responders arrive on the scene, hopefully in time to prevent mass murder”.

Only with extreme reluctance does he concede that maybe it’s time to rethink the situation but, even then, he remains wishy-washy at best: “Even as I write these words, I am troubled by my own thoughts on this subject, but also comforted by the knowledge that if we seriously consider arming at least some members of our communities, we will approach this issue with the grave concern that serious Jews bring to focus when dealing with all life-and-death issues. While not yet ready to formally recommend this giant step, I am ready to discuss it openly so that we do not wait too long and then have to rush into making a quick decision that may only make a bad situation worse.”
Yeah – that should do it, Ben. Let’s talk about it some more. I’m sure the terrorists will be happy to sit back and wait for you to come to a decision – albeit not a quick one. Sigh……..

Is it any wonder that I’m not only angry at the Jews who marched quietly into the “showers” but continue to be angry at those Jews who exhibit the same idiocy today?

“We must become resolved that we will not tolerate Politicians who do not represent us and hold their feet to the fire. ”

Of course, this is nonsense. People tolerate politicians all the time, even when they hate them. If you are not tolerating them, then you are literally going to war against them, and I don’t think Sheila was quite advocating that (although when the time comes, it’s not such a bad idea…)

Rather than fanciful nonsense like holding a politician’s feet to the fire, if you think you should carry a firearm, then carry one. Stop begging politicians and bureaucrats for permission to live your life.